Al Gore & Climate change

Al Gore just received the Nobel Peace prize today, along with the IPCC from the UN, for making aware and educating the public about the serious issue of climate change that our whole human race is facing. I thought it was a really good time for me brush up on this hot issue.

I found a really great collection of articles by the NYT on the topic of climate change.

In 2001, the IPCC declared that humanity "likely" played a role for climate change, but scientific evidence have led them to change this on the last Feb 2007 report to "very likely".

And one of the most striking evidences were the melting ice caps from the North Pole this summer. A large area called the "perennial sea ice", which was covered by ice since 1979, has for the first time in history seen 6 Californias worth of ice area become open sea water. What a worrying thought, I wonder what it's going to be like in the next few years... And scientists are worrying whether the global warming process has already come to an "irreversible" stage, meaning there's nothing we can do to reverse global warming to its original state. It is a very real worry.

One of the most heard terms is the Kyoto protocol, where ratified countries agree to put a limit on their carbon emissions, and reduce their emissions to the 1990-level (which is itself already high). Most countries in the world have already ratified, but the protocol is currently failing, because the two countries with the most emissions historically, the US and Australia, are refusing to ratify.

The reasons for their refusal is perhaps complex, but the greatest reason is the high economic cost that politicians fear. If a country agrees on a emissions cap, then a company in that country would need to purchase "carbon credit" if it expects to exceed its quota (and the credit goes to countries with spare quota, probably in less developed countries). Since most companies in the US far exceed their expected quota for the Kyoto protocol, the Bush administration refuses to ratify it for fear of huge economic impact. And therefore both Bush and John Howard have been severely criticized for their "selfish" political policies. Whether capping emissions will be bad for the economy is still a hot controversial debate though, because it can be argued that environment-aware strategies will in fact generate more economical returns, as can be seen by the success of the Japanese fuel-efficient cars. In the long-term, fuel efficiency not only leads to better environment, it also leads to lower costs.

On the political front, Bush had always used the excuse of the Clean Air Act to say that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) does not the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and even if it had, it would not use the authority. But a few months ago the Supreme Court rebuked it by ruling that the EPA does have the authority to regulate, and that it was illegal for it to refuse to regulate unless it could provide a scientific basis for its refusal. I believe this is really the power of the division of power, and it's one of the things I admire in the US political system...

Climate change also highlights the unfairness that exists in this world... The poorest victims of climate change are the very countries which do not have the capacity to resist its effects... Countries like Malawi where 90% of people rely on agriculture for their living, are hopeless to see frequent droughts and floods shatter its economy. Ironically, they are also the ones which do not have equipment to even know the duration of sunshine, let alone measuring effects of climate change to prove their case. A sad analogy is "on this planet, we're driving the climate car into our neighbor's living room, and they don't even have insurance and we do".